Within hours of the first Israeli and American airstrikes hitting Iran last weekend, militiamen from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps deployed in neighborhoods across Tehran, the capital, and in most urban centers.

上周末，以色列和美国对伊朗发动首轮空袭后数小时内，伊朗伊斯兰革命卫队的武装人员便部署到首都德黑兰及大多数城市中心的各个街区。

Eyewitnesses and the occasional furtive video posted online depicted men in plainclothes, often armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, manning checkpoints where they searched cars and cellphones, alert for signs of endorsing the war. Black anti-riot vehicles were lined up in places like closed schoolyards that were less likely to be struck by missiles.

目击者和网上零星流出的偷拍视频显示，身穿便衣、手持卡拉什尼科夫突击步枪的人员在检查站值守，盘查车辆与手机，警惕任何支持这场战争的迹象。黑色防暴车辆停在封闭校园等不太可能被导弹击中的地方。

“They tried to create the illusion for outsiders that they are in control, and inside to create fear for people so they do not dare come out to the street,” said Saeid Golkar, a political science professor at the University of Tennessee and the author of “Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social Control in Post-Revolutionary Iran.”

“他们试图对外界制造掌控一切的假象，对内制造恐惧，让人们不敢走上街头，”美国田纳西大学政治学教授、《被禁锢的社会——巴斯基民兵与革命后伊朗的社会控制》一书作者赛义德·戈尔卡尔表示。

President Trump has suggested that the Guards drop their weapons to buttress popular support for regime change. Analysts consider that scenario highly unlikely. Iran might appear to be a theocracy, and its official ideology is firmly rooted in Shiite Islam, but the Guards constitute the spine of a militarized state. Analysts consider their pervasive military, political and economic clout the main barrier to regime change, or any change, in Iran.

特朗普总统曾暗示革命卫队放下武器，助力民众对政权更迭的支持。分析人士认为这种情况极不可能发生。伊朗表面上是神权国家，官方意识形态牢牢植根于什叶派伊斯兰教，但革命卫队构成了这个军事化国家的支柱。分析人士认为，革命卫队在军事、政治与经济领域的广泛影响力，是阻碍伊朗政权更迭乃至任何变革的主要障碍。

Here is a primer on this powerful group.

以下是关于这个强大组织的基本介绍。

1980年两伊战争期间，伊朗卡斯尔希林附近的一名革命卫队士兵。

What is the I.R.G.C.?

什么是伊斯兰革命卫队？

In the early days of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, its founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, did not trust the armed forces, known as Artesh, a Farsi word for army. He was said to have muttered, “Artesh has the Shah in its blood.”

1979年伊斯兰革命初期，革命缔造者阿亚图拉鲁霍拉·霍梅尼不信任正规军伊斯兰共和国军队（波斯语称“阿尔特什”）。据说他曾低声说：“阿尔特什的血液里有沙阿的血统。”

So he organized a parallel armed force, the I.R.G.C., charged specifically with safeguarding the revolution. The core of the group were members of neighborhood committees, often organized around a mosque, that had been established to protect their areas and to liquidate perceived enemies of the revolution.

于是他组建了一支平行武装力量——伊斯兰革命卫队，专门负责捍卫革命成果。该组织的核心来自社区委员会的成员，这些委员会通常以清真寺为中心建立，旨在保护辖区并清除革命的潜在敌人。

The eight-year war that started when Iraq invaded in 1980 molded the Guards into a more cohesive force. The Guards took on tasks like building a missile development program virtually from scratch; Washington, its main arms supplier, had severed ties after the revolution.

1980年伊拉克入侵引发的八年战争将革命卫队塑造成更具凝聚力的力量。卫队承担起几乎从零开始的导弹研发计划等任务；革命后，美国这一主要武器供应国已切断了对伊朗的关系。

After the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, the new supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, turned the Guards into an elite force, marrying his office to its power, while allowing it to expand into politics and the economy.

1989年霍梅尼去世后，新任最高领袖阿里·哈梅内伊将革命卫队打造成精锐部队，将其权力与最高领袖办公室绑定，同时允许其涉足政治与经济领域。

The Guards established a separate wing to manage reconstruction after the Iraq war. The group still builds roads, dams and other infrastructure. It also became adept at smuggling goods in and out of Iran, including oil, in response to Western economic sanctions imposed after 2002, when Iran’s then secretive nuclear development program was exposed.

革命卫队在伊拉克战争后成立了专门部门负责重建，至今仍在修建道路、水坝等基础设施。为应对2002年伊朗秘密核计划曝光后西方的经济制裁，卫队也开始精通石油等物资的进出口走私。

Today, the Guards control at least 25 percent of the economy and perhaps twice that amount, said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.

华盛顿国防民主基金会高级研究员贝赫纳姆·本·塔莱布卢表示，如今革命卫队控制着伊朗至少25%的经济，实际比例还可能翻倍。

By toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003, the United States created an opening for the Guards to expand across the Middle East, using its Quds Force to build an axis of mostly Shiite Muslim militias in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza. The Guards then became a major foreign policy player.

2003年美国推翻萨达姆·侯赛因，为革命卫队向中东扩张创造了契机。革命卫队通过圣城旅在黎巴嫩、叙利亚、伊拉克、也门和加沙建立起以什叶派民兵为主的轴心，由此成为重要的外交政策参与者。

2024年德黑兰阅兵式上的革命卫队。

How are the Guards structured?

革命卫队如何建构？

The Guards number between 125,000 and 180,000 men. Analysts peg the country’s overall security forces at up to 1.5 million, including the police. Not all Guards are armed; some work in fields like construction or cultural programs.

革命卫队兵力在12.5万至18万人之间。分析人士估计，包括警察在内，伊朗全国安全部队总人数高达150万。并非所有卫队成员都武装执勤，部分人员从事建筑、文化项目等工作。

There are four main military branches — ground, naval and aerospace forces along with the Quds Force, which is responsible for foreign operations. In addition, the Guards control various allied organizations including their own intelligence agency, as well as the Basij neighborhood militias.

革命卫队下设四大军事分支：地面部队、海军、空天部队以及负责境外行动的圣城旅。此外，卫队还控制着各类附属机构，包括自身的情报部门和巴斯基社区民兵。

The Guards follow a so-called “mosaic” strategy that emerged from both seeing the rapid collapse of central authority in Iraq during the U.S. invasion in 2003 and the domestic effort to squash the Green Movement, the nationwide antigovernment protests in 2009. A decentralized command structure was intended to insure that the Guards could maintain domestic control in case the provinces were ever cut off from Tehran, or could overcome any vacuum in the absence of the supreme leader, the ultimate decision maker.

卫队奉行所谓“马赛克战略”，这一策略源于2003年美国入侵伊拉克时该国中央政权迅速崩溃的教训，以及2009年镇压全国性反政府抗议浪潮“绿色运动”的经验。这种分散式指挥结构旨在确保，即便各省与德黑兰失联，或最高领袖这一最终决策者缺位，卫队仍能填补权力真空。

The strategy was further refined last June to strengthen Iran’s defense against an external enemy, analysts said, after Ayatollah Khamenei was a target of a 12-day war waged by Israel and the United States.

分析人士称，去年6月，在哈梅内伊成为美以发动的12天战争的打击目标后，这一战略经过了进一步完善，以强化伊朗抵御外部敌人的能力。

“They are acting according to the playbook,” said Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. “The system is functioning without Khamenei.”

“他们正按预案行动，”柏林德国国际与安全事务研究所客座研究员哈米德雷扎·阿齐兹表示。“在没有哈梅内伊的情况下，这套体系仍在运转。”

While following a central blueprint, regional commanders have autonomy on decisions like when to launch missiles or drones. There are 31 commands, one for each province, with even smaller branches meant to puncture domestic protests in virtually every neighborhood.

在遵循中央蓝图的同时，地区指挥官在发射导弹或无人机等决策上拥有自主权。全国共设31个指挥部（每个省份各设一个），还有更基层的分支，几乎渗透到每个社区，以镇压抗议活动。

The current war, with the leadership in Tehran degraded, “is exactly the type of moment that the mosaic doctrine was meant to respond to,” said Afshon Ostovar, the author of “Wars of Ambition: The United States, Iran and the Struggle for the Middle East.”

《野心之战——美国、伊朗与中东争夺战》作者阿夫申·奥斯托瓦尔指出，当前战争中，德黑兰领导层遭遇重创，“这正是马赛克战略旨在应对的时刻”。

阿赫迈德·瓦希迪准将于3月1日被任命为革命卫队新任指挥官。

Who commands the Guards?

革命卫队由谁指挥？

Israeli and American attacks have killed two Guards commanders, one in June and the second on Feb. 28.

美以袭击已造成两名卫队指挥官身亡，一人在6月遇袭，另一人在2月28日遇袭。

A veteran hard-line officer with a reputation for brutality, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, was appointed on March 1 to head the Guards. A former minister of the interior and defense, he was a founding commander of the Quds Force in 1988, leading it for eight years.

以残暴著称的资深强硬派军官艾哈迈德·瓦希迪准将于3月1日被任命为革命卫队总司令。他曾任内政部长与国防部长，1988年参与创建圣城旅并担任指挥官八年。

Mr. Vahidi is suspected of fostering overseas organizations that carried out terrorist attacks at Iran’s behest, including a deadly bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994 that killed 85 people. Argentina, accusing Mr. Vahidi of approving the attack carried out by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, unsuccessfully sought his arrest through Interpol. Iran has repeatedly denied any involvement.

瓦希迪被怀疑扶持境外组织执行伊朗指使的恐怖袭击，包括1994年布宜诺斯艾利斯犹太社区中心爆炸案，该事件造成85人死亡。阿根廷指控瓦希迪批准黎巴嫩真主党实施袭击，曾通过国际刑警组织要求逮捕他，但未能成功。伊朗一再否认与此事有关。

Looking ahead

未来走向

Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late supreme leader and his likely heir, enlisted with the Guards during the Iraq war and has maintained particularly strong ties. As his father’s closest aide, he appointed its senior officers for the past two decades, and is now considered their heavy favorite, analysts said.

已故最高领袖之子、大概率接班的穆杰塔巴·哈梅内伊在伊拉克战争期间曾加入革命卫队，与卫队关系尤为紧密。分析人士称，作为父亲最亲近的助手，他在过去20年间负责任命卫队高级军官，如今被视为卫队最属意的人选。

But the Guards are not monolithic. While some members helped to mow down protesters by the thousands in January, it is also a conscript force, so its foot soldiers mirror Iranian society — some disdain the Islamic system. A core group of 2,000 to 3,000 officers, however, are considered hard-liners whose rank and wealth are tied to the organization. They will fight to the bitter end, analysts said.

但革命卫队并非铁板一块。尽管部分成员在今年1月参与镇压、造成数千抗议者死亡，但卫队也实行征兵制，基层士兵反映了伊朗社会的真实面貌——其中一些人蔑视伊斯兰体制。不过，卫队核心的2000至3000名军官属于强硬派，其地位与财富均与革命卫队深度绑定。分析人士称，他们会战斗到底。